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Apologies for having a quiet summer on our blog. We haven’t even been reading other people’s blogs, since Google Reader shut down. Does anyone have recommendations for another browser-based RSS reader?

It is October, which means our adoption journey picks up pace. We attend preparation group this month, at Suburban Agency. Soon after, we will put in our official application to Rural Adoption Agency. We will be appointed a social worker and then complete home study. A few panels, a lot of reading, and one match later — and we will be parents.

We have been entertaining the idea of Hand-stitched Dad taking the adoption leave, so all three of us can be home for the most amount of time with our new family member. I have heard that some social workers are particular about releasing a child into the care of a man. That is a diplomatic way of saying that some social workers make matching decisions based on our gender (or maybe gonad assignation?) rather than exploring what “gender” and “familiarity” really means to their traumatised child. There are of course very good reasons why some children are placed with Male or Female parents, but I hope there are even better reasons why they are matched with those parents, that have nothing to do with Male or Female parts at all.

I cannot speak for individual social workers or individual children awaiting adoptive placements, but I can speak for my lovely husband. Hand-stitched Dad is a gentle man with a boyish face, who rarely has anything but kind things to say. He is tall and slender, with a charming multi-coloured beard. Whenever I see him, I relax. Whenever he looks at me, I smile. If I feel childlike and stroppy, he returns my childlike banter in equal force. If I feel serious and philosophical, he listens quietly.

When things became very stressful — the peak of our grieving — we separated for a brief two weeks. It was horrible. But at the end of the two weeks, I knew exactly why I married this man.

We are not perfect. We make mistakes every day. We have had life experiences that have disabled us and left us lonely and afraid. We do not have everything we want, such as a spacious, clean home. But we do have a few quite remarkable things, such as deep respect for each other and a willingness to grow together no matter what the outcome. I now have a name for the values that keep us together: Acceptance and Resilience.

Hand-stitched Dad is steadfast. He embodies all the best qualities of a parent, and, yes, most of those qualities are also considered archetypical female: gentleness, sensitivity, compassion, tolerance, deference.

I look forward to seeing our prospective adopters report. How will it capture the ambiguity of gender roles in our relationship? Will I be described as masculine because of the absence of typical female traits? Will people ignore Hand-stitched Dad’s strengths because he is male? How will the biases of our social worker play out in our assessment?

It may not ultimately work out financially, but I would love to see Hand-stitched Dad grow into the role previously known as Mother. I know that I would be proud to be a Father. I’m not sure it matters what we hide in our underpants.

Hand-stitched Dad has been volunteering with me, and it has been lovely to share that with him. He really is a natural with the girls, way more than I was when I started. I may have a keen eye for observing and knowing people, but I need to practice relaxing and being in the moment. This is where hand-stitched dad puts me to shame. I’m learning a lot from him and I wish he would post more often, as he is an inspiration.

We regularly chat about adoption. It’s starting to feel more real to both of us, along with the feeling that we really do have a say in all of this! It’s okay to voice what we want, what we hope for… I know it sounds baffling and obvious, but, after years of having our choices and our confidence taken away by infertility, it’s taken a bit of an adjustment.

I would say that the biggest achievement in the last month has been my sense of self-acceptance. Self-knowledge is great, but what worth is knowledge if you can’t accept it? I have to battle through a lot of bad experiences to get to a place where I feel genuinely accepted (where I genuinely accept myself). I’m starting to feel that way, and it is really paying off in my social life.

I like to think of this as “nesting in my mind” … preparing an emotional home for my future child. It is naturally selfish, as I am the first one to benefit from having emotional well-being. But other people benefit, too. I make no apologies for the time I invest in improving myself. Reading adoption forums makes you feel like social workers will reject you for any sign of weakness. And yet, I can think of nothing worse for traumatised children than a pathologically narcissistic parent!

Successful adoptive parents really do have a beautiful balance of humility and courage. The demands are so high. No wonder so many feel so inadequate so frequently. I’ve been a prospective adopter for years now, and I have deep empathy for adoptive parents. I have learned so much about myself from their journeys and struggles. I hope this translates to resilience.

Things have been progressing at a nice pace. We are booked into a preparation group in the autumn, which gives us time to move house (fingers crossed). Little City adoption agency has been in touch and we will be meeting with them in the next few weeks.

As Little City and Rural share training, we don’t need to decide between them until we put in a formal application after preparation group training. The government, however, is changing the way adoption agencies assess prospective adopters. Things may look completely different after July 1st, meaning we will be pushed by government KPIs (key performance indicators) to apply and be approved as soon as possible (four to six months). The alternative is that we bring down the statistics for our chosen adoption agency.

The cost of these changes is that vulnerable people who are not yet ready to adopt will either be rejected at panel or rushed into parenthood. Well, I suppose if those people wanted to take their time, they would. I’m not sure it will make the system better though — preying on people’s intense desires to be parents.

Because of these changes, I have made it clear to the adoption agencies that hand-stitched dad and I will be taking our time. The last thing I want is for an over-eager social worker to try to rush us, our report, our link, our match, our introductions, our *anything*. Thankfully, Rural adoption agency has been very supportive of our plans. This has increased our trust in this agency to the point where it would take a lot for Little City to impress us. Rural has demonstrated a commitment to getting to know us and maintaining a continuity throughout the various hoops placed before us prospective adopters. The attitudes of the staff have all been ‘on message’ aka consistent and clear. Finally, they have demonstrated their understanding of what we have to offer and what we have to learn.

This has set the bar rather high for Little City.

I feel like my mind is already made up. But that is not how it works. A lot can change before 2014. It is important we stay flexible and only commit when the time is right.

“As you are still a prospective adopter, you can have little real idea of what it is like actually to parent one of the most difficult children in the system, though your understanding will have been augmented greatly by being able to read these boards. ” [Bold mine]

Really, it’s never nice to be told what you are.

But that’s not what I want to comment on. I want to challenge the idea that the biggest difference between the quoted person and me is that they are parents and I am not.

If you search the scientific literature, you don’t read that traumatised children thrive best with people who have experience raising a ‘difficult child.’ You read that traumatised children thrive best with people who have experienced and resolved their own trauma successfully — presumably because these sorts of parents have genuine empathy and resilience. Experience raising a child doesn’t really factor into that equation, because people don’t need to be experienced parents to have the resources, understanding and motivation to take care of a traumatised child.

In my masters training, I was told by a child psychotherapist that “children choose” who to trust. They “choose” based on their complex experiences, or rather — how their experience of you fits into their previous experiences. It is a mostly automatic process, as people do not always have the capacity to step back from and challenge the connections between emotions, thoughts and behaviours. As I observed child-adult interactions for my course, I saw this in practice: we are all captive to our life experiences. It is difficult to challenge our semi-automatic judgments of people, including ourselves.

I am a prospective adopter. But my ideas of what it is like to “actually parent one of the most difficult children in the system” come from my own life experiences not my adoptive status nor the amount of time I’ve spent reading adoption boards. I trust that my home study will fully explore these experiences in order to answer that very question. I may even share a bit of my history with you here. Please don’t mistake this future disclosure of information as seeking your approval, as I don’t want or need it. The only people that matter regarding my parenting skills are the people in my care and the people who sometimes act on their behalf (aka the social workers).

What I can offer you, dear reader, is the same respect, consideration and acceptance of your disclosures that I demand for mine. I understand that we may have had different experiences; we may make different choices. But we are united by how we take responsibility for those experiences and choices: our actions, our beliefs. We strive to understand, to know more, to do better. We share our vulnerabilities and strengths, by our own choice, and in time we realise that respect has less to do with shared experiences and everything to do with acknowledging ourselves.

I empathise with the original source of the quote. They were motivated by a desire to protect the vulnerable members of their group. I am reminded again that I’m anoutsider a prospective adopter. As anoutsider a prospective adopter, I have no leverage to challenge the way things are done. Strange how this experience of rejection and frustration feels a little like… a real idea relevant life experience.

I’d never really contemplated the idea that having a child would involve panels and social workers, rather than antenatal class, midwives, etc. Life however is in the habit of ignoring my assumptions, turning any preconceptions on their head, and long story short here we are embarking on quite a different path to what I expected: the path of adoption. And for me at least, the first big step – the moment that made it all seem real – was the the Little City information evening hand-stitched mum and I were invited to.

I would normally be pretty nervous attending an event like this, but somehow the timing seemed right. We had previously attended an information evening by Rural, however I felt like an observer that night. I was dipping my toe in the bath to check the temperature before taking the plunge. At Little City’s evening I felt like I was actually there for a reason.

The event was held in a small room at their offices, which felt intimate, unassuming and welcoming. Hand-stitched mum and I made our way in, sat a couple of rows back from the front (not wanting to seem too eager or not eager enough) and chatted while waiting for others to arrive. All in all there were probably about eight other couples there by the time things got started.

First up was the team lead who introduced herself and talked a little about the history of adoption and the adoption process as it is now. To be honest, many of the details washed over me a little during the first part of the night. Most of the stuff they said, hand-stitched mum hadalready told me.† Also I was trying to be mindful of my feelings – something that doesn’t always come naturally to me.

Next up was an adoptive parent who talked us though their adoption process. For me, it was reassuring to hear someone talking passionately about their experiences. At the information evening for the Rural adoption agency last year, one of the adoptive parents who spoke was clearly stressed and very upset. It was scary to see such strong emotions. As I hadn’t heard from an adoptive parent before that night, I started to wonder if that’s just how adoption is! At the Little City information evening it was nice to be reminded of the positives too.

Lastly, a social worker introduced herself and described her part in the adoption process. She was warm and friendly, with a genuine smile. I knew it was unlikely that she would be our social worker. The whole process of inviting someone into our house and our lives seems very alien to me, so it was just nice to put a friendly human face to the adoption agencies.

Questions were invited at the end, as you tend to expect not many people were brave enough. However, many stayed on at the end to speak to the social workers and adoptive parent more privately. Hand-stitched mum and I stayed too and we asked the social worker whether it was okay to start to the process while considering a house move. Thankfully, the social worker said it was fine, as long as it was completed before we adopted.

As we drove home, hand-stitched mum and I chatted. I remember being excited. I could hear the excitement in my own voice and it felt good. In fact, it felt very good to be embarking on a path that I’d never anticipated being on.

†Hand-stitched mum has an unbelievable ability to research, absorb and recall information!

Fear that we might be deemed ‘not good enough’ to be adoptive parents.

Anger at people for withholding or limiting support for adopted children.

Empathy for birth parents who struggle with the chaos of their lives.

Sadness over our shared losses: the children, their birth parents and us.

Admiration for the remarkable people who find security despite traumatic experiences.

Hope that we can be a family that belongs somewhere, together.

Amidst all these emotions (and more) are important details and decisions. So, I started a Blue Notebook as a communication record, filled with dates, names, phone numbers, and notes of conversations and meetings related to the adoption process.

As I told the social workers: unlike many people beginning this journey, we are not in a hurry. Adoption thrives on preparation. After spending the last few years in books, blogs and forums, we are starting to branch out into telephone calls, meetings, and visits. Once we apply to an agency, we will join a preparation group and meet other prospective adopters. We will have home study visits with a social worker (or two), who simultaneously educates and evaluates us. Then, when we all agree we are ready, we go to panel to be approved (or rejected) as adoptive parents.

I genuinely hope this takes time. I want time to build my confidence as a therapeutic parent. I want time to make decisions about what sort of children hand-stitched dad and I are best suited for. I want time to build new relationships with experienced adopters, with our chosen agency, and with other new families. We need time to manage all of the big emotions that are stirred up in this process.